Let’s not push the panic button, again, about charter schools. Every year, it seems, we have a new problem to fix with this educational experiment. This year, concerns are focused on the use of state funding to build new facilities, and examples of odd financial arrangements with building committees set up by charters for this purpose.

We acknowledge our colleagues at the Star Tribune for exposing some of these problems. The idea of experimental schools building permanent structures, especially at a time when the district schools next door may be empty, needs a hard look. We hope the Legislature can clarify the law and make it clear that the charter idea is not about bricks and mortar. It’s about educational innovation.

Charters are an idea we support as a vital adjunct in education policy. Even in Minnesota, which had the first-in-the-nation charter school law in 1991, there are only 152 charter schools and 33,000 students. That is a smaller number of students than are educated in regular district schools in St. Paul. Add in Minnesota’s profusion of private and parochial schools, and charters are an even smaller slice of the overall pie.

As to buildings, we hope the Legislature finds a way to allow charters to expand without spending on new buildings. Using existing classroom space, even if an imperfect fit, is a good compromise. It says to students and parents: This school is about learning, not about the size of our new cafeteria or the success of our football team.

Charter schools are public schools, funded by the taxpayers and open to all who want to attend. They are bound by the same laws prohibiting sectarian religious preference and requiring a standard of performance on statewide tests. Teachers must have appropriate Minnesota licensure but the schools are freed from some of the rules that govern regular district schools. They are generally organized by sponsors interested in a specific focus. Sponsors include colleges and universities, groups organized around an educational idea, and school districts themselves.

There have been many success stories. There have been some meltdowns. A goal of government should be to let a thousand experiments bloom while seeing that students don’t lose ground in the process. Overall, national and state studies have not found charters to be a panacea. But with the publication of school-by-school test scores, charters offer parents the ability to make informed choices.

A national study released in June by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University looked at the performance of charter school students in 15 states and the District of Columbia. It grouped each state’s performance according to whether those schools performed better, the same as, or worse than traditional public schools. It found that 17 percent of the schools “provide superior educational opportunities for their students,” roughly half are about the same as comparable district schools, and 37 percent “deliver learning results that are significantly worse” than students would have found in traditional public schools. Minnesota, alas, fell into the last grouping.

The report concluded: “The problem of quality is the most pressing issue that charter schools and their supporters face.” But it also found that two subgroups fare better in charters than in regular public schools: students who live in poverty and English language learners. “This is no small feat … these populations, then, have clearly been well served by the introduction of charters into the education landscape.”

The report argues that it is much easier to open, fund and sustain a charter school than it is to close one for poor academic performance. “Despite low test scores, failing charter schools often have powerful and persuasive supporters in their communities,” the report states. Its conclusion is that parents need a “national set of performance metrics” to allow citizens to compare performance of charter schools and their sponsors.

The charter movement in Minnesota, begun in 1991, is long past the “growing-pain” stage. It is in the “show-us-the-results” stage. Good intentions are not enough for our young learners, whether those intentions are developed by a charter school board, a traditional school board, or a private school board. State officials certainly need to deal with issues as they arise, such as potential conflicts of interest, concerns about sectarian influence and the use of lease-aid to build new structures. But the focus must always be on quality. Are students learning?

Charters have served another purpose in the larger public debate. Advocates of government solutions refuse to acknowledge the popularity of the belief that government is the problem, not the solution. Many others may believe in some goals of government but question its ability to accomplish them, particularly in a centralized fashion.

In education, the charter movement has moved the money closer to the people. It allows groups who might otherwise not look to government for a solution to try their hand at organizing and running a public school. When charter schools succeed — and many do — they show a way through the “good government-bad government” debate. In that sense, we all have a stake in the success of this grand experiment.

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